Preview

Introspection and Solitude in the Age of Communication

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
928 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Introspection and Solitude in the Age of Communication
Solitude for a new Generation In the article “The End of Solitude” written by William Deresiewicz; Mr. Deresiewicz presents the Idea that the rampant and untamed growth of technology has let today’s youth to seek of constant connectivity with their world as a whole. He also claims that the sense of solitude that people from previous generations used to gain a sense of them and gain a greater understanding of the world around them as a whole is losing its values and becoming an obsolete notion. But what Mr. Deresiewicz fails to realize is that as generations continue to thrive and expand on the ideas and innovations of who and what came before them that their definition of a thing like; what is solitude? Is bound to change and grow as well. So Mr. Deresiewicz argument while very insightful fails to realize that our younger generation has not lost their sense of solitude they have just changed the definition to suit their needs. The ideas and philosophies of the introspection, solitude and communication with the world around us, along with the pondering of life great philosophical questions about our existence that the great philosophical thinkers of past generations have little to do with the challenges that the modern technologically depended youth face. Back in the time of Hemingway and Fitzgerald the world was a lot bigger than it is today there were less people looking for spotlight then people actually in it. If you wanted to be alone all you had to do was go a few miles out of your perspective suburb and you were alone no one could reach you; you could not call anybody it was just you the world and who ever happened to be in said mode of transportation with you. But what the older generation of which Mr. Deresiewicz is a part of fail to realize is that technological connection that these youth are attached to has little to do with being connected to people twenty four hours a day seven days a week but to do with competing resources and space

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Is our youth doomed? Mark Edmundson begs this question in his essay, “Dwelling in Possibilities.” His essay explains how the lives of young people have changed drastically over the years. Edmundson, professor at the University of Virginia, says his students are constantly “going” and that they never stop; they never settle in fear of missing something great. In lieu of this, Edmundson says that they are, “victims of their own hunger for speed” (Edmundson2). He also adds that his students, and young people in general, use today’s technology to be “everywhere at once” (watching a movie, instant messaging, talking on the phone, and glancing at a textbook) and are therefore, “not anywhere in particular” (Edmundson 3). Edmundson’s uses a very unique style of rhetoric. He does not point fingers at anyone in particular for causing the problem, and he does not come across as harsh or aggressive. Instead, Edmundson asks the readers, particularly his fellow professors, to see a trend in society that often goes unnoticed. Although Endmundson purposes no solution to the problem, he uses personal observations, experiences, famous authors’ texts, and renowned poets’ works to successfully make readers understand his viewpoints.…

    • 1214 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Box Man

    • 743 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Barbara Lazear Ascher wrote this essay to help audiences see the difference between chosen and unchosen loneliness. With a numerous amount of examples she shows the reader the difference between someone who willingly chooses to live life alone, and people who find themselves lonely and dwell about it.…

    • 743 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The author explains that it seems as though some individuals would rather live separated from the rest of the world, and who live their life never knowing anyone except themself. The author encourages the reader to go into the world and do everything they can, and to help, sing and develop relationships with others. No one can be entirely complete by themself, humans were created with a sense of and a yearning for community. Humans communicate through various platforms and methods, and more ways are becoming possible through the advancement of technology.…

    • 1094 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Box Man

    • 719 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The ideas which Ascher presents in this essay are applicable to everyone’s lives, whether it is learning about not judging people or understanding solitude as a whole, making it timeless. No matter what day and age, there will always be people who are living in solitude, whether they have chosen to or not. The Box Man, a homeless person, teaches us a very valuable lesson; find happiness in yourself, as in the end we must find a “friend in our own voice,” and accept that life is a “solo voyage” (20,…

    • 719 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Solitude — the state of seclusion — in the modern world differs from solitude in the Romanticism era. Romanticism is a point in time within the 19th century, most known for its literature written about sadness, loss, and heartbreak. The article “The End of Solitude,” written by William Deresiewicz, addresses how solitude no longer exists today due to the access of technology. He believes the newer generations do not have moments of solitude because of their constant need for visibility, or referred to now as attention. Contrary to Deresiewicz’s claim, present-day solitude does exist.…

    • 757 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This assignment is a reflective account on communicating with a patient who cannot communicate verbally. To remain confidential I will call the patient, Patient A. I’m going to discuss the importance of non-verbal communication within a healthcare setting. Patient A was a 63 year old lady suffering from MND which resulted in her losing her speech.…

    • 792 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Communication is very important in order to express needs and emotions. There are two types of communication, verbal and non-verbal, both of which are important in understanding and supporting someone.…

    • 738 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    He develops his idea by pointing out that America today is not the same as it used to be (“Diaries once sealed under lock and key are now called blogs. Intimacies that were once whispered into the phone are now announced unabashedly into cell phones…”), especially because the “culture” nowadays surrounds the self-centered way of thinking through technology (“…television networks that already agree with your views, iPods that play only music you already know you like, Internet programs ready to filter out all but the news you want to hear”).…

    • 270 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The article explores the relationship among privacy, loneliness, and interpersonal communication. In essence, it examined the relationship among individual’s preferences for the six types of conversational sensitivity, loneliness, privacy, and interpersonal communication. Thus, the research seeks to answer the relationship between need for privacy, interpersonal communication motives, and conversational sensitivity. Further, it answers the relationship between loneliness and need for privacy, the relationship between loneliness and interpersonal communication motives. Finally, is it possible for the biological sex of an individual to be related to the need for privacy and loneliness?…

    • 268 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay On Social Isolation

    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Social isolation as “a state in which the individual lacks a sense of belonging socially, lacks engagement with others, has a minimal number of social contacts and they are deficient in fulfilling quality relationships” (Nicholson, 2009 p. 1346).…

    • 460 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    As John Donne said “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of a continent, a part of the main.” Donne believes man cannot live a happy, successful life on his own without any connection to other living things. Loneliness and seclusion are extremely prevalent issues in the 21st century society primarily because we find increasing reliability to non-verbal interaction, rising globalization and reliance on technology. In Richard Matheson’s “I am Legend”, the effects of isolation on man’s psyche and overall well being are demonstrated through Robert Neville’s need for companionship, constant interior monologue and his various addictions. Matheson in essence predicted what the 21st century would be like, as there are many parallels between the novella and the lives of people today.…

    • 557 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Crawford wants to highlight the fact that even though technologies such as the iPhone and the Internet impact the way we currently live our lives, it does not hold complete responsibility for our collective distractibility. He ties in our collective distractibility with the Enlightenment movement of the 17th century when philosophers John Locke and Immanuel Kant argued that what we experience is not reality, but inner variations and representations of our own reality placed into our private minds. While the outside version of reality is filled with rules and authority figures, our inner private minds is free and holds no constraints like that in the outside. According to Crawford, the Enlightenment was the time when people in society decided to detach from one another. Throughout the book, Crawford talks about experts in their chosen fields and how they manage to complete what they do. He mentions that as we grow up from being a child to an adult, we acquire skills by studying one another and learning from what those around us…

    • 821 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tumblr Rules

    • 1147 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Cited: Deresiewicz, William. “The End of Solitude.” The Chronicle Review 30 January 2009. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Web. 26 May 2011.…

    • 1147 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    I have found that both “Kick Back and Endure Being Bored and Uncomfortable” by Clive Hamilton, and William Deresiewicz’s “The End of Solitude” can be efficiently summarized with the great social psychologist, Erich Fromm’s quote, “If I am what I have, then I lose what I have, who then am I?”. Hamilton’s article reflects his view illustrating that he views modern technology as a deterrent for people’s natural ability to not only accept, but to appreciate absolute gratification of solitude. It is this concept of people’s growing disvalue of solitude that both I, and Deresiewic concur with (demonstrated in his essay). I feel that the ability of people’s easy accessibility to social media is nothing more than a barricade…

    • 923 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The rhetorical situation of the article revolves around Goodmans believe that present day people have become obsessively attached to their mobile devices and how this will drastically harm our future because of how accustomed we have gotten with simplicity, and our obsession is detaining us from becoming the next big thinker. Goodman supports his claim with pathos, "How, in this age of relentless electronic distraction, will our civilization sustain the sense of solitude that is necessary to produce the next Brontë or Bellow, the next Augustine or Alighieri....". However, Goodman should have recognized that we are revolutionizing and will never become like his college years. If we go back in history, we used to use the Pony Express to deliver…

    • 182 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays